Nostalgia Helps You Make and Keep Friends

New research conducted reveals that nostalgia does more than make people feel good. It also motivates people. More specifically, nostalgia inspires individuals to strive to improve their social lives.

In this research, which was spearheaded by Andrew Abeyta, nostalgia was tested in different ways to motivate social pursuits.

Findings showed that nostalgia increased people’s (1) desire to be around others, (2) prioritization of social goals such as making new friends, (3) optimism about achieving social goals, and (4) motivation to resolve relationship conflicts.

In summary, nostalgia appears to mobilize the social self by giving people motivation to pursue social goals and opportunities. But why? We believed that nostalgia motivates the social self because it increases social confidence or what we call social efficacy.